KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a mixed trend as investors remained cautious taking fresh positions.

BRIndex100 lost 5.18 points or 0.12 percent to close at 4,354.56 points. BRIndex-100 hit intraday high of 4,380.20 and intraday low of 4,349.59 points. Volumes stood at 548.583 million shares.

BRIndex30 inched up by 12.41 points or 0.06 percent to close at 22,224.46 points with a turnover of 256.365 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index gained 47.35 points or 0.11 percent and closed at 41,876.26 points. Daily trading volumes increased to 582.794 million shares as compared to 441.286 million shares traded on Tuesday.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $172.080. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 10 billion to Rs 7.841 trillion. Out of total 420 active scrips, 218 closed in negative and 183 in positive while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

Silk Bank was the volume leader with 167.490 million shares and gained Rs 0.06 to close at Rs 1.06 followed by Unity Foods that inched up by Rs 0.06 to close at Rs 18.01 with 51.805 million shares. Colgate Palmolive and Indus Dyeing were the top gainers increasing by Rs 109.93 and Rs 40.70 respectively to close at Rs 3010.00 and Rs 583.58 while Rafhan Maize and Island Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 290.00 and Rs 40.78 respectively to close at Rs 8400.00 and Rs 1000.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 22.1 points or 0.28 percent to close at 7,852.45 points with total turnover of 4.111 million shares.

BR Cement Index closed at 5,959.34, down 7.14 points or 0.12 percent with 43.525 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 13.09 points or 0.16 percent to close at 8,398.34 points with 194.312 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 4.71 points or 0.09 percent to close at 5,007.05 points with 27.947 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 14.65 points or 0.35 percent to close at 4,117.98 points with 37.082 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index decreased by 14.37 points or 0.73 percent to close at 1,949.51 points with 47.191 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market traded in a narrow range, moving between negative 73 points and positive 194 points during the session closing up 47 points.

While E&P sector saw retreat in OGDC and PPL, which has been the case since last several sessions on the back of weak crude oil prices, banking sector saw renewed buying activity, especially in HBL and BOP.

Among OMCs, PSO and HASCOL performed well, besides cement sector that showed positive activity in anticipation of healthy dispatches in the ongoing month. Post credit of UNITY right shares in investor accounts, the stock price dipped but recovered by day end.

Banking sector saw high volumes of 194.2 million shares, followed by Vanaspati (51.8 million shares) and Technology (47.1 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (down 43 points), Textile (up 30 points), Inv Banks (up 19 points), O&GMCs (up 17 points), Chemical (up 12 points) and Fertilizer (up 11 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include DAWH (up 23 points), COLG (up 16 points), ILP (up 13 points), JLICL (up 7 points) and BOP (up 7 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include OGDC (down 17 points), PPL (down 12 points), LUCK (down 11 points), POL (down 8 points) and UBL (down 8 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020